<B>By Deepa BHOOKHUN</B>

She was just four years old. You and I didn’t know her: we only got to read about Anne Jennia after some pervert decided he had the right to take the sparkle out of her beautiful eyes, that he had the right to rip innocence out of her small being, that he had the right to treat a little child like an object of sexual desire. And to take what he wanted no matter what the consequences of his horrendous act.

He ended up killing her. The only comfort following that wretched affair is that at least Anne Jennia is no longer suffering now. At least she cannot be reached, she cannot be touched anymore. But at what price! Because others, like Anne Jennia, are at this very moment you are reading those lines, going through the same nightmare. Who are they, where are they, who are the perpetrators? The most terrifying thing is that we do not know.

What is it that makes people act like animals? What is it that removes from man’s conscience the barrier between right and wrong? How did we lose that quality which makes us different from animals, the only thing that could lead us to salvation, our humanity?

What will it take to stop this never-ending perverted and sadistic trend? Because, right now, it looks like it is not going to stop. Statistics have proved - despite what some half-wits insist on saying - that locking up people for life, hanging them or even castrating them will not miraculously obliterate the existence of sadists. Then, what will?

We read that child abusers or rapists were themselves victims of abuse. We are also told that poverty and unemployment usually breed a decline in moral values, that if people have empty stomachs and too much time on their idle hands, conscientious behaviour becomes a luxury. I am ready to believe that. But high-flyers with more money than sense have been known to give in to the sordid temptations of pedophilia. So the theory doesn’t hold water then, does it?

Our criminal justice system has failed us, the courts of law have failed us, the police have failed us and now we are failing our children because we cannot protect them. Because we are bequeathing to them a society where there are no guarantees, a society where people smile and smile and are villains.

Britain’s new Home secretary John Reid, also fed up with the rise in anti-social behaviour, told victims to stop moaning and take action. A statement that has not won him many fans. But maybe he is right. Maybe it is time we stopped moaning about the rising insecurity prevailing in the country and made sure instead that we take all precautionary steps so that we do not fall prey to sadists.

But, when the sadist lives in your midst, when your child’s rapist turns out to be the person you trust the most, what do you do?

I have no idea. Maybe parents need to teach their children to speak up when someone has hurt them, to let the world know their pain. Because it is only then that we can hope to put a stop to it. If everyone howled at every injustice, every act of barbarism, every act of unkindness, then we will have taken the first step towards real humanity. Why should people walk unresistingly to their deaths? Scream, cry, and howl, parents should tell their kids.

There has to be a way to see through the hollow smiles and the fake kindness. There has to be a way to recognize the one who will smile and smile and be a villain.